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54 Arts Projects Awarded Creative Placemaking Grants

ArtPlace America has announced the 54 recipients (out of over 1200 applicants) for its most recent round of creative placemaking grants. The $15.2 million in grants will support projects in 44 communities and a statewide project in Connecticut.

"From the exhibitions of African-American art in Houston’s Project Row Houses to the amazing folk sculpture of the Heidelberg Project in Detroit to Candy Chang’s amazing Before I Die project that originated in New Orleans and has now spread elsewhere, artists are bringing life and purpose back to forgotten districts," says Kaid Benfield. "While there may be some risk that 'creative placemaking' could become a passing fad without a lasting legacy, I don’t think so: when it’s homegrown, it’s real."

"As anyone who has read me before knows, I strongly support anything that helps make urban neighborhoods more welcoming and thriving for current and future residents and visitors," he adds. "It not only makes for better communities; it also makes for a healthier environment, because cities with their more centrally located and walkable neighborhoods are far less polluting and consumptive of resources on a per-person basis than the wasteful pattern of suburban sprawl that has for so long dominated our landscape."